The new race loft almost completed

Almost finished the new race loft. A few shots.


And another

looks excellent gary

Cheers mate, can't wait to see it finished. It's took some work though.

looking good gary,did you build it yourself or buy it and put it up yourself ?

nice and tidy

Cheers guys, I designed and built it.

hi Gary,that sloping aviary/viewing cage unusual for britishgarden loft,more like usa style,looks alright mate

It's based on a loft I saw in Belgium. It stops the birds dossing on top of the cages and the only place they can land is on the letboard. Because it's on an allotment it stops the cats from pouncing on the cage. If they come over the roof, they will just slide off. They can't sneak up on the birds in the cage, because they are mesh bottomed, except for the trapping cage. Believe it or not a lot of thought has gone into the design of this loft. Hopefully I should have it finished next week and I will take some pics of the interior.

You are right,you have to get your thinking cap on before you even start building ,not being funny but you see the same old story on these forums with lads puttung up lofts and they are putting their birds at a disadvantage straight away,poor birds got to overcome inferior houseing even before they try to compete against top fanciers who leave nothing to chance.
Worst thing you find are other fanciers being polite by saying how nice the loft is,but in most cases the lofts awful.

Cheers for your comments mate. I know where your coming from.
From our point of view, we have took lots of things into consideration. First and foremost, is maintenance. Most lofts get hammered by the weather on the front. This is why we used Cortex. In fact they are second hand signs. It's hard wearing and can stand up to our harsh weather conditions. It's easy to clean and requires soap and water. No painting.
Space was another factor. The loft is 16ft long, by 6 feet wide. We have divided it into four sections.
The two end sections are to house eight cocks in each section.

The nest boxes are 2ft long by 1ft high and 1ft deep. There is then 2 ft in front of the boxes. The idea of this narrow passageway is to stop the birds becoming wild and making it easy to basket them. When the slider on the cages are up this gives them an additional 3ft. They can bath in the rain without the loft becoming wet and damp. They can see all around from inside the cage. Behind the section in the picture is a small hen section with 16 T perches. To stop them pairing up. On both cock sections there are sliding doors. When both doors are slid back, the doors seal off the hen section and the entry corridor. This is so we can use it as a widowhood loft, or a roundabout loft. an additional breeding loft. The central section can be used for sitting in when the weather is bad on race days and for clocking in the birds. During breeding, the central section can be used for housing weaned youngsters. The white front of the loft is extremely visible from the line of flight. The style of the cages make the hens visible to the arriving cocks giving them the incentive to enter the loft quickly. Also we can lock down both cock sections when the hens are exercising so the neither sexes are visible to each other. There's more but it will turn into a story. Sorry about the long reply.

Like the loft Gary but it does look like the lofts you see in america but everyone to there own mate

Cheers Don, I know it's not everybody's cup of tea. But apart from the stock birds we are starting from scratch next year. So we thought we would be different. New loft design, new motivation system. It's going to make next season interesting.

Must say Gary the style of your loft is spot on mate as that is the way forward compared to the sputnik style trapping system

Traps to me, have always been a bugbear. I wouldn't entertain any sort of stall trap as your bird only needs to get stuck once and they panic and become spooked, this makes them wary of trapping. I like the sputnik type of traps. But they always fall to pieces. This is variation of the sputnik type of traps.

Yes, but still allows the pigeon a large landing area compared to the sputnik stall trap

Gary have you seen the video "small is Beautiful" Henry Gonzalous he had a large board fittted to his sputnik trap to allow his birds to land on

Your new trapping system allows this to happen

I haven't seen it mate. But I can understand where he is coming from. Our letboard is nearly 5ft long and the only perch on the front of the loft.

spot on mate look forward to seeing how the new season works out for you

Cheers Don. Watch this space as they say

nice neat loft gary i to like the traps come flights on the front i may well make something on the same lines for the front of my ob loft as its open door at the moment,like yourself i dont like the stall traps,nice job though gary credit where its due

there`s nothing quite like biulding your own loft Gary,most of the lofts you see advertised in the fancy press are proper rubbish,usually because of inferior materials,and poor design,90%of the lofts curned out would be 100% better if decent exterior cladding was added not the usual cheap T&G you see,and if only they would extend soffit at the very least 300mm wide ,they would at least be seen to be trying,and all this tripe about apex offset tiled roofs are supposed to be the best is to say the least laughable,any pent stlye loft with plenty of roofspace will do as good a job in the right hands.

GRIZZLECOCK wrote:

there`s nothing quite like biulding your own loft Gary,most of the lofts you see advertised in the fancy press are proper rubbish,usually because of inferior materials,and poor design,90%of the lofts curned out would be 100% better if decent exterior cladding was added not the usual cheap T&G you see,and if only they would extend soffit at the very least 300mm wide ,they would at least be seen to be trying,and all this tripe about apex offset tiled roofs are supposed to be the best is to say the least laughable,any pent stlye loft with plenty of roofspace will do as good a job in the right hands.

yes good comment grizzle could not agree more most are using 2nd rate materials and the tiled roof dont half bump up the price so long as the loft is well ventilated and the stale air extracts well dont see any need for a tiled roof but have to say they look smart

Months of planning and lots of thought have gone into the building of this new loft.
We wanted it to be practical,

This is a view of the end cocks section before the cage is put on. Note the roof space above the boxes, this is the ventilation duct from front to back which will be covered with pegboard. The boxes are completely enclosed for storage which can be accessed from the rear hens section.